Garabaldi vs Look at My Hair..... Please Clarify

Hello all. So I am just wondering, are these two products the same or do they differ in some way? Is one superior to the other? Do I need both? Any assistance the community can provide is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

From what I've seen so far, LAMH works really well for short hair and fur, while Garabaldi looks better for longer head hair, and possibly manes and tails for horses. But that's based strictly on the pictures I've seen, having not worked with either.

I'm very paranoid about system stress, though, so I generally give any kind of fibermesh hair a wide berth.

I'm'a get both. Preset functionality is the most important to me, since it's the most useful as far as making products or freebies dependant on the plugin (think of the great strand hairs that have been made for Poser hair room).

So far I haven't found LAMH very easy to use, but I also have devoted only an hour or so to the tutorials.

I'm very paranoid about system stress, though, so I generally give any kind of fibermesh hair a wide berth.

Then you are in luck...because they are not 'fibermesh'...they are 'curve' based. In other words, they are procedural...with the option to export to geometry. So, the 'system' toll is much lower than the large number of polys a fibermesh product has.

It should be noted that RiCurves can only be rendered in a Renderman engine - eg DS. If you plan on using Lux, Octane, Vue, etc, then you will need to export the curves to an .obj file and you are back to using a mesh.

I don't know about the LAMH .obj, but in the Garibaldi thread Mec4D noted that the .obj output was similar to Zbrush Fibermesh but lighter in file size.

It should be noted that RiCurves can only be rendered in a Renderman engine - eg DS. If you plan on using Lux, Octane, Vue, etc, then you will need to export the curves to an .obj file and you are back to using a mesh.

I don't know about the LAMH .obj, but in the Garibaldi thread Mec4D noted that the .obj output was similar to Zbrush Fibermesh but lighter in file size.

That's okay. I like it on this side of the Uncanny valley, and have no plans on trying to figure out how to cross it. :)

It should be noted that RiCurves can only be rendered in a Renderman engine - eg DS. If you plan on using Lux, Octane, Vue, etc, then you will need to export the curves to an .obj file and you are back to using a mesh.

I don't know about the LAMH .obj, but in the Garibaldi thread Mec4D noted that the .obj output was similar to Zbrush Fibermesh but lighter in file size.

It should be noted that RiCurves can only be rendered in a Renderman engine - eg DS. If you plan on using Lux, Octane, Vue, etc, then you will need to export the curves to an .obj file and you are back to using a mesh.

I don't know about the LAMH .obj, but in the Garibaldi thread Mec4D noted that the .obj output was similar to Zbrush Fibermesh but lighter in file size.

LAMH has had OBJ output from the very beginning.

Kendall

I guess I wasn't clear in my statement.

I know that LAMH has had .obj output from the beginning - I just don't know what type of object structure it creates. Like Fibermesh, Garibaldi outputs cylidrical objects. Are LAMH objects cylidrical or flat planes with texture maps like the more traditional prop hair?

That is what I was saying when I said I didn't know what type of .obj LAMH creates.

Okay, I bought Garibaldi today, and now I have both plugins. Here are my thoughts:

1. Both have good tutorials on Youtube.
2. Garibaldi was much easier to get good "groomed" results with in my total noob, just-started-the-plugin attempts. See pic.
3. My attempt at a hair that's pretty impossible to find - the Bela Lugosi widow's peak short hair - met with no success at all in LAMH but was pretty quick and easy in Garibaldi (though not perfect, it worked without bizarre visual errors). With LAMH I couldn't get things to lie down below "fluffy afro" levels.
4. The Garibaldi hair can be saved right back to library, just as if it were a prop or clothing item, and works on reload once it is conformed to Genesis. I never figured out how to do this with LAMH hair. I assume the base program is required to use saved hairs for either (although I hear LAMH has a free player coming out that will allow hairs to be used but not edited by those without the plugin).
5. I haven't tried to do fur with either yet, so I may be missing an advantage of LAMH there. It sure has some gorgeous previews with fur out there.
6. The interfaces are not dissimilar. Both are dark, use similar buttons and sliders, and pop up when activated from the DS4.5 menus. Again, I preferred Garibaldi's grooming tools and length control features, but that's subjective. Both are easier to use than Poser's Hair room in my highly subjective opinion. Neither was significantly laggy on my 64 bit Win 7 system (16 gb RAM) and their render times were comparable to the geometry strand hairs I own (i.e., still slightly faster than a transmap hair the same size).
7. They are similar in price right now.

My advice is: If you can only get one, and you want it for groomed human hair, get Garibaldi. If you want mostly fur, get LAMH. If you can afford it, and have one but are considering the other, get both.

Again, totally subjective, and I hope others will share their experiences.

SickleYield, thank you for the comparison. I was wondering about how they compared and if there would be a problem having both on my system. Right now I don't know that I can afford both, but that is what the wishlist is for. ;D

Okay, I bought Garibaldi today, and now I have both plugins. Here are my thoughts:

1. Both have good tutorials on Youtube.
2. Garibaldi was much easier to get good "groomed" results with in my total noob, just-started-the-plugin attempts. See pic.
3. My attempt at a hair that's pretty impossible to find - the Bela Lugosi widow's peak short hair - met with no success at all in LAMH but was pretty quick and easy in Garibaldi (though not perfect, it worked without bizarre visual errors). With LAMH I couldn't get things to lie down below "fluffy afro" levels.
4. The Garibaldi hair can be saved right back to library, just as if it were a prop or clothing item, and works on reload once it is conformed to Genesis. I never figured out how to do this with LAMH hair. I assume the base program is required to use saved hairs for either (although I hear LAMH has a free player coming out that will allow hairs to be used but not edited by those without the plugin).
5. I haven't tried to do fur with either yet, so I may be missing an advantage of LAMH there. It sure has some gorgeous previews with fur out there.
6. The interfaces are not dissimilar. Both are dark, use similar buttons and sliders, and pop up when activated from the DS4.5 menus. Again, I preferred Garibaldi's grooming tools and length control features, but that's subjective. Both are easier to use than Poser's Hair room in my highly subjective opinion. Neither was significantly laggy on my 64 bit Win 7 system (16 gb RAM) and their render times were comparable to the geometry strand hairs I own (i.e., still slightly faster than a transmap hair the same size).
7. They are similar in price right now.

My advice is: If you can only get one, and you want it for groomed human hair, get Garibaldi. If you want mostly fur, get LAMH. If you can afford it, and have one but are considering the other, get both.

Again, totally subjective, and I hope others will share their experiences.

Thanks for the feed back SickleYield (have to say, like your products alot all the morphs you put in your clothes)
I also have the LAMH plugin but don' use it, was not able to figure out how to get any good results with the limited timed I used it.
So just gave up on it.
Have tried the beta of Garibaldi and in just a short test seemed easier to get results.
Going to go ahead and buy it.

Also thought I would mention that I use Fisty's velvet sparkle shaders on the hair rather than the actual hair shaders. I know it may make it look less *real* but I really like it..... ^_^ i couldn't figure out stuff like that as easily with Garibaldi....

Both are great.
Only real problem I had with Garibaldi during the Beta was that hair would be invisible if you set the Render Engine to the Scripted 3Delight: Point-Based Occlusion. Since that's what I use to render I'll stick with Look At My Hair.
Otherwise both are really cool and even similar.

Also thought I would mention that I use Fisty's velvet sparkle shaders on the hair rather than the actual hair shaders. I know it may make it look less *real* but I really like it..... ^_^ i couldn't figure out stuff like that as easily with Garibaldi....

No, I did not, 'cause it's not in the YouTube tutorial. I'll look forward to trying it though. Do you mind my asking - how did you pull things down in the Style section without causing them to vanish into the head? How did you do tails? Are they a separate hair piece extruded from a smaller section of the head?

EDIT: Aha, I found the Long Smooth Hair tutorial. Let's see if I can do better with more use of Spherize.

No, I did not, 'cause it's not in the YouTube tutorial. I'll look forward to trying it though. Do you mind my asking - how did you pull things down in the Style section without causing them to vanish into the head? How did you do tails? Are they a separate hair piece extruded from a smaller section of the head?

hm.... i kind of thought moving the length slider like that was intuitive! Different strokes I guess!

Let's see, different questions...
1. two different ways to fix style. One is ultra fast, and I just brush all the hair straight down, turn off occlusion, hold down space bar, make the brush very large, and gently pull the roots up and out a little bit. if you over lift, just pull down on the hair tips a bit. Also some folks don't realize that you can brush UP the hair as well as down. Sometimes when i dont want to disturb the top hair but want to change something in the middle, i brush up from a lower section. Second, i start the hair short, and usually in "mirror" or symmetry mode, make sure you have occlusion on, and apply small amounts of spherize and small amounts of length and shape it as i grow it.

Tails also have more than one method. :) Some have one group of hair for the gather, and some for the tail, such as with anime hair style Kuru. That has the benefit of letting other people restyle the tail quickly and easily without changing the rest of the style (tho they can if they wish).

I also used ponytails on my YoungTeen hairstyle JulieRuby hair, 5 gathers.... but these were each actually styled. I started growing them long, spherizing on the Z axis (TIP: when you spherize, there are tiny little 'xyz' and by default only Y is orange highlighted... this means it will pull hair DOWN on the Y axis, so you can pull hair up, by reversing the slider, back by only selecting z , forward by reversing, and all combinations). Then i'd hold spacebar, make the brush small, and gather the hairs into a point. Each ponytail has its own group. You are welcome to try it though of course it is as lopsided as my hair looks in real life. :)

Other things: I like to to overlap groups sometimes. I like to use a separate group for fine detail like wind. Why? easier to change in a scene than to change a style. i try to set up the hair styles, since i make them for people to use, to be changed and altered conveniently.

No, I did not, 'cause it's not in the YouTube tutorial. I'll look forward to trying it though. Do you mind my asking - how did you pull things down in the Style section without causing them to vanish into the head? How did you do tails? Are they a separate hair piece extruded from a smaller section of the head?

hm.... i kind of thought moving the length slider like that was intuitive! Different strokes I guess!

Let's see, different questions...
1. two different ways to fix style. One is ultra fast, and I just brush all the hair straight down, turn off occlusion, hold down space bar, make the brush very large, and gently pull the roots up and out a little bit. if you over lift, just pull down on the hair tips a bit. Also some folks don't realize that you can brush UP the hair as well as down. Sometimes when i dont want to disturb the top hair but want to change something in the middle, i brush up from a lower section. Second, i start the hair short, and usually in "mirror" or symmetry mode, make sure you have occlusion on, and apply small amounts of spherize and small amounts of length and shape it as i grow it.

Tails also have more than one method. :) Some have one group of hair for the gather, and some for the tail, such as with anime hair style Kuru. That has the benefit of letting other people restyle the tail quickly and easily without changing the rest of the style (tho they can if they wish).

I also used ponytails on my YoungTeen hairstyle JulieRuby hair, 5 gathers.... but these were each actually styled. I started growing them long, spherizing on the Z axis (TIP: when you spherize, there are tiny little 'xyz' and by default only Y is orange highlighted... this means it will pull hair DOWN on the Y axis, so you can pull hair up, by reversing the slider, back by only selecting z , forward by reversing, and all combinations). Then i'd hold spacebar, make the brush small, and gather the hairs into a point. Each ponytail has its own group. You are welcome to try it though of course it is as lopsided as my hair looks in real life. :)

Other things: I like to to overlap groups sometimes. I like to use a separate group for fine detail like wind. Why? easier to change in a scene than to change a style. i try to set up the hair styles, since i make them for people to use, to be changed and altered conveniently.

Part of the problem with LAMH is that it's very hotkey dependant so the controls are inherently less intuitive. I'm fine with this in Blender, because Blender has hotkey charts out the wazoo for me to look at. Is there one for LAMH anywhere? I can't find where in all the video tutorials it says, for instance, how to scale the brush.